National Parks vs Private Land - Park group
asks Congress to buy "inholdings" for public good

(Note: At the http://forests.orgarchive/america/urgebuyl.htm
website, someone decided to add this: "OVERVIEW
& COMMENTARY BY EE: Large contiguous areas of intact forest
ecosystems are required to maintain diversity and functionality.National Parks in the United States, though defined more on
"monumentalism" than on ecological worth, are nonetheless
the United States' last best chance to save representative intact
landscapes composed of native species and community diversity.The following article highlights one obstacle to better
biodiversity conservation in National Parks -- that of "inholdings"
-- parcels of land within park boundaries that are privately owned.Many of these lands may develop commercially.There is potential for inappropriate and polluting land uses
within and adjacent to U.S. National Parks.Any habitat conversion there could fragment and diminish
ecological systems.The
National Park Trust reports that for a relatively small amount of
money, some $70 million, the connectedness and quality of interior
areas of National Parks could be maintained and improved. g.b.")

August 25, 1999

By Miguel Llanos, MSNBC

Mojave National Preserve includes dunes among its 1.6 million acres.
The National Park Trust wants to see 86,000 acres of privately owned
land within the preserve bought for the public good.

A park preservation group on Wednesday claimed that
some 200,000 acres of privately held land within the nation's park
system are in "imminent" danger of being developed or
resold.

The National Park Trust listed 20 "high
priority" sites covering 110,000 acres and urged Congress to come
up with the estimated $70 million it would take to buy them for the
public good.

"The danger that this land could be
sold for development, bulldozing, clear cutting or for other
destructive purposes constitutes the single greatest threat to the
system of national and state parks," Trust President Paul
Pritchard said in a statement released with the report on the 83rd
birthday of the National Park Service.

The Trust claimed that even though purchases of
private lands have increased in recent years, so too have the number
of acres of private land in public parks. In the last decade, it said,
private property within Americas parks -- known as "inholdings" --
rose by 1.6 million acres, a 35 percent increase.

Some six million acres within the 84 million acres
of the national park system are privately owned, and Pritchard claimed
that "on any given day 200,000 acres are under an immediate
threat."

Plea to Congress

Private citizens should demand action at all
levels of government, Pritchard added, noting that Congress has
been slow to approve purchases even though it has more than $5 billion
available through a Land and Water Conservation Fund.

The 1965 fund allows some $900 million a year to go
towards acquisitions.
Still, Congress has been reluctant to come up with money for land
purchases. The report said that in 1998 only $23 million was provided
for national park land acquisition, a tenth of what the National Park
Service had sought.
This summer the House and Senate approved about half of the $295
million the Interior Department had sought for its land
legacy purchases, including funds earmarked to buy private land
in and adjacent to federal parks.

Response from Congress

A staffer on the Republican-run House subcommittee
for national parks took exception to the report on several fronts,
noting first that the Clinton administration has asked for acquisition
funds only in the last few years.

As for the threat to parks, the source asked, "What's
imminent? Who knows what that means." In most cases, he wagered,
"nothing's going on" with the property.

The source also noted that inholdings are often
property that was there before a park was created or expanded and in
those cases "it's not fair to turn around and point the finger at
private property."

But at the House subcommittee for Interior
Department appropriations the reaction was different. In a statement,
Chairman Ralph Regula, R-Ohio, said the Trust "properly calls
attention to the inholdings issue" and noted that he has made
acquisition of those properties a "top priority."

Priorites big and small

In its report, the Trust claimed the threat to parks
from the development of inholdings is growing significantly because
the value of these lands in many cases has skyrocketed.

Logging, energy exploration, mining and subdivisions
were cited as examples of what's planned for many of the inholdings.

The National Park Service has also identified
development of inholdings as a threat to the system.

The Trust report cited 110,000 acres of privately
owned property in and adjacent to 20 parks, valued at more than $70
million, as being at greatest risk of being developed or re-sold for
commercial purposes.

The Trust's "top targets" list (see end of
story) ranges from 9 acres within the Cape Cod National Seashore in
Massachusetts to 86,426 acres in California's Mojave Desert.

Nonprofit buybacks

While pressuring Congress remains a major strategy,
the Trust and other groups are also raising money to buy back land
themselves for the public good.

Through donations, the Trust recently bought 10,000
acres of tallgrass prairie in Kansas, and will own the land while the
National Park Service operates it as a park.

In
another example, the nonprofit Wildlands Conservancy recently began
negotiations to buy 430,000 acres parceled out checkerboard-fashion in
and around Joshua TreeNational
Park and the Mojave National Preserve, both inCalifornia.

But
even here final approval will depend on $36 million coming from the
federal government. So far, the Senate has agreed to come up with only
$15 million and the House none at all.

National
Park Trust's Top 20 Targets

The
Trust identified these areas as their top 20 "high
priorities" and estimated their purchase prices. In all, they
encompass 110,000 acres and $70 million would be needed to buy them
for the National Parks System.

"Interior Sec Gale A Norton has adopted strategy
of pushing what she calls four C's: communication, consultation and
cooperation, all in service of conservation; to Norton, four C's are
basis of what she and President Bush call new environmentalism, which
emphasizes cooperation at local level rather than federal edicts;
whatever strategy means for environment, it has helped Norton avoid
political trouble ... a grand new initiative called Water
2025..."

Washington, DC - A nonprofit trust whose mission is
to purchase land to add to the National Park System is targeting more
than 86,000 acres of private property inside the Mojave National
Preserve.

The National Park Trust announced Wednesday it will
help the federal parks agency acquire more than 200,000 acres across
the country of "in-holdings" -- private or publicly owned
land within national parks, including the California desert land. The
eastern boundary of the Mojave preserve is 60 miles west of Las Vegas.

"It's up in the air right now," Paul
Pritchard, president of the National Park Trust, said of the private
tracts within the Mojave. Pritchard warned that development of the
checkerboard of private in-holdings within the Mojave National
Preserve would spoil the purpose for creating the preserve in 1994.

The group released a report calling the proposed
private development of 200,000 acres within 20 park units in the 84
million-acre National Park System a major threat to the sanctity of
America's parks.

"The danger that this land could be sold for
development, bulldozing, clear-cutting or for other destructive
purposes constitutes the single greatest threat to the nation's
cherished system of national and state parks," Pritchard said.
Presently, about 6 million acres of land within the parks is privately
owned.

The Wildlands Conservancy, a California group,
already has worked out an agreement with Catellus Development Corp., a
real estate firm that owns most of the Mojave private in-holdings. In
exchange for $18.6 million from the conservancy and an additional $36
million in federal funds, the real estate firm would turn over most of
the environmentally sensitive land. The rest of the property, valued
at $16.4 million, would be donated by Catellus.

But there is a potential glitch in obtaining the $36
million from the Clinton administration. Congress would have to
approve a bill that would allow the National Park Service to spend
that sum from the Land and Water Conservation fund, a pot of money
collected from offshore oil leases.

This summer the House and Senate approved about half
of the $295 million the Department of Interior had sought for a
variety of in-holdings purchases.

The Senate has agreed to spend $15 million on the
Mojave project, less than half of the amount needed. That's still more
than the House version of the bill, which includes no funding for
Mojave purchases. Negotiators will meet in September to iron out
differences.

If Congress does not allocate enough money this year
to complete the deal with Catellus, trust officials said they will
seek more next year.

David Myers, executive director of the Wildlands
Conservancy, said Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., played a role in
blocking funding from the House version of the bill. Myers said Lewis
used his role as chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on
defense to block the Mojave money until he gets funding to help nearby
Fort Erwin Army Base with a proposed expansion.

Lewis' spokesman James Specht said the lawmaker does
not plan to block Mojave funding when the bill is considered by House
and Senate negotiators.

"His main concern is Fort Erwin," Specht
said, noting Lewis will not sit on the conference panel that will
consider Mojave funding.

"We have to realize that the solution to this
problem really is in the hands of Americans who want to see these
lands protected," Pritchard said, referring to all the lands. He
said the trust is hoping to spark public support, and in turn
influence state and congressional lawmakers.